A Consequence of Trust
by Amanda Kitswell
Summary: The Landsmeet is over, and Zevran has watched as Arais distanced herself from her companions. When he finally decides to speak to her, he sees the personal consequences of her decision are not very different from those he had experienced himself. Mild trigger warning for discussion of suicide and suicidal situations.


_**Mild trigger warning for discussion of suicide.**_

* * *

Her tent was set up much further from the others than was usual tonight.

It wasn't entirely unexpected, though Zevran hadn't noticed until Wynne had finished preparing dinner and sent Leliana to fetch their leader. When the bard returned without Arais, he'd looked past Leliana and had to squint in order to see the tent, hidden beneath a low-hanging pine bough.

Part of him had wanted to go to her, see if she was well, but Leliana's grim expression told him everything he would learn if he had. Instead, he ate with the others, trying and failing to lighten the mood with conversation and being rebuffed by all but Oghren, who was well into his ale and hardly coherent.

Loghain, of course, had pitched his tent further from the main camp than even Morrigan and Arais, though he had wandered to the fire some time after everyone else had finished eating. Despite her obvious distrust and foul temper, Wynne had dished out bowls of stew and left them by the fire for both him and Arais. No doubt she wanted to keep the tentative peace their leader had negotiated between the elder mage and Loghain.

Even after Loghain had retired to his tent, Arais hadn't left her own. Though Zevran wanted to give her the space she so obviously desired, something was nagging at him, much like Wynne did when he told one too many risqué jokes in her presence.

He stared at the spot where Alistair had once stood, often talking with Leliana about the Chantry or with Wynne about the Circle and mage politics, always sounding more intelligent than he ever let on. And if Alistair spoke to Arais . . . there was a more decided effort to be intelligent, to seem more sure of himself. And when they disappeared into their shared tent, as the Landsmeet drew closer, Alistair had grown. He might have even been ready to become king, had that been in the cards. As it stood, though, he was Maker only knew where, and Zevran only hoped that he was still alive.

When everyone else had gone to their tents and the fire began to die out, Zevran pushed himself to his feet and retrieved Arais's dinner. He carried it to her tent, where Barkspawn lifted his head from where he lay by the flap and watched the elf, his dark, keen eyes suspicious. Zevran scratched the hound's ears while he listened for any sound from the tent, and it was almost too quiet for his comfort. Like a Fereldan snowfall, when all life halted as inch after inch blanketed the hard, unforgiving earth.

"Arais?" Zevran called, just loud enough for her to hear.

Barkspawn woofed softly, paws scuffing along the dirt as he rose to his feet, and nosed his way inside the tent. Moments after his stubby tail disappeared within, his head poked back out, those eyes deliberately meeting Zevran's. This time, they seemed worried, and the sharp bark that came shortly after startled the elf. When the hound backed his way into the tent once again, Zevran felt obligated to follow.

The full moon offered the only source of light as it filtered in through the open flap, casting Arais in a cold sheen—she wore a sleeveless nightgown and little else, hardly appropriate for the chilled night in which they found themselves. Moonlight glimmered on steel that rested on the bedroll. It was a dagger, and one dark hand held the pommel in a loose grip.

Arais's dinner forgotten as soon as he placed the bowl on the ground, Zevran staggered past Barkspawn to the woman who stared blankly across the tent. As soon as the flap fell closed behind him, they were cast in shadow, and he cursed the darkness. Had she been bleeding? Was there blood on the blade? It was foolish of him not to check.

"Arais, can you hear me?" He took the hand that had been empty, running his fingers along the skin of her arm and finding it blessedly dry. He checked her other arm, her shoulders, but hesitated to check further. He thought perhaps to call for Wynne, or even Leliana, and when a few moments had passed and Arais still hadn't responded, he turned to Barkspawn. "Fetch one of the women, will you? Wynne would be preferable."

The dog huffed his acquiescence and pushed through the tent flaps, and after a moment his short, urgent bark could be heard from near the fire. There was a muffled, questioning voice, barely audible from this distance, followed by more conversational barking from the hound. Soon, shuffling footsteps approached the tent.

Wynne poked her head in through the tent flaps; her eyes, first widened, then narrowed in suspicion. "What in Andraste's name is going on in here?"

"Nothing unseemly, I assure you. Our dear leader is unwell—I think she thought to harm herself, but I can't be sure she hasn't already." He gestured to Arais, and Wynne shuffled forward, her robes hiked up to her knees. A wisp appeared from nowhere and illuminated the tent. "Her arms are clear of any injury, but I thought it best that you check the rest of her."

The elder mage gave a curt nod and turned to meet his eyes. "I need space. Please."

"As you wish." He moved to the tent's entrance and pulled the flap aside, then slid out, sure that when Wynne had said she would need space, she meant that he wasn't welcome in the tent while she checked Arais.

And that was fine with him; it hardly seemed appropriate for him to be there if he was not needed.

As he rose to his feet, his mind began to wander, the night's events reminding him of a dark time in his own life. He had hardened himself to life with the Crows, to the lives he had taken and told himself he didn't regret.

Barkspawn joined Zevran after a time and sat in front of him, the dog's tail wagging expectantly. Zevran scratched the hound's head, which earned him a low woof of approval. His legs soon grew tired, and he sat beside the tent's entrance, listening as Wynne tried to coax some kind of verbal response from Arais, only to earn more silence. He could hear the worry in Wynne's voice; a slight hint of desperation as she said Arais's name once, twice, a dozen times without answer. That worry was infectious, burrowing into his heart and weighing it down until it settled in his stomach.

When Wynne emerged from the tent what felt like hours later (though, realistically, it hadn't been more than half an hour), her mouth was set in a grim line that expressed better than words her displeasure. Zevran said nothing; rather, he allowed her time to think.

"She is unharmed." Wynne's eyebrows furrowed together. "Physically, anyhow."

"Is she still not speaking?"

"Not so much as a syllable." With a deep sigh, her eyes met his. "Perhaps you will have luck where I did not."

A wave of dread washed over him. He forced his voice to remain calm. "Doubtful. You were her mentor in the Circle, were you not? If you, who have known her as long as you have, cannot bring her to speak, what chance would I have?"

She narrowed her lids, and he wondered if maybe he had sounded _too_ flippant. "I don't think a mentor is what she needs, Zevran. What she requires is someone who can relate to what she believes she has done."

"And what, pray tell, is that?" He crossed his arms over his chest, as the dread began to seep more deeply through his bones.

"It has seemed clear to me over the past several days that Arais is under the impression her decision at the Landsmeet was a betrayal." Wynne deliberately held his gaze. "I expect you know something of betrayal."

Her words, so like an accusation, suggested knowledge she could not possibly possess. "I . . ." He snapped his mouth shut, trying to quell the panic.

And then it occurred him. She meant Taliesen. Of course, Arais would have mentioned the encounter in Denerim to Wynne. And Wynne would misconstrue his defection from the Crows, and the subsequent murder of his former brethren, as a betrayal, wouldn't she? For all his jokes, he never gave her a true understanding of what being an assassin was like. Never allowed her to see that the guilt she was so adamant he should feel was what led him to defect in the first place, and, in fact, had nothing to do with Taliesen and the man's undying loyalty to the Crows.

"If you think there is something I might be able to do," he forced himself to meet her eyes, "of course, I will try. Though I'm not sure how much help I will be."

"Yes, well. If she doesn't speak, at least sit with her and make sure she's safe. It's all we can do."

"As you wish."

Wynne nodded solemnly, heavily, and he could see her exhaustion in the fine lines that creased her eyes and the dark circles beneath. She pushed passed him and crossed to her tent, and it wasn't until she had disappeared behind the flaps that he realized she was leaving him to tend to their leader personally. This came as something of a surprise. Did she mean for him to spend the night in Arais's tent?

Ah well, if it came to it, he would merely wake Wynne, or perhaps Leliana, if he needed to rest.

For now, he climbed inside Arais's tent.

She was now more appropriately dressed for the weather, a long sleeved tunic carefully guarding her from the cold air that only Ferelden could offer at the very beginning of spring. She wore leggings, as well, and she lay on her side, staring at nothing in particular from her bedroll. It was eerie, almost, how her eyes seemed to be focused, but unfocused at the same time.

It was an expression he was all too familiar with, and he shuddered, and not from the cold.

He sat cross-legged before her, and reached out his hand to take hers. Her skin was cool, and her hand remained limp in his. Had he not known better, he would believe her dead. When the minute turned into five, and stretched on to ten with no movement from her, he did the only thing he could think to do.

He spoke.

"Dinner was an entertaining affair. A lovely stew, prepared by Wynne, and tonight the carrots were cooked to perfection. Oghren, of course, drank just enough to be surly, without actually passing out and sparing the rest of us from his colorful language, and our new friend, Ser Loghain, glowered formidably, although he, too, seemed to enjoy the carrots."

Arais' expression remained blank: that eerie non-stare continuing to focus on the opposite side of the tent. Memories, uncomfortable memories, began to press into his mind. Things he would rather not think about, things that he wished he could scourge from his memory permanently, whatever the cost.

Perhaps Wynne had a point. She may not know the extent of his transgressions, but that didn't make her observation any less valid—compared to what Zevran did, Arais's decision at the Landsmeet was tame.

He took a deep breath. What could talking about it hurt, except maybe his pride?

"I wasn't entirely honest with you, when we ran into Taliesen in Denerim." The words spilled from him in a rambling mess. "He and I did know one another, quite well, in fact, but it's much more illicit than that. And before you say anything," he interjected needlessly, "it wasn't sexual—though that happened too, come to think of it. Rather, the illicit part is what caused us to part company. My last mission, in fact. The one I refused to tell you about just before we arrived in Denerim in the first place? I suppose now is as good a time as any to do so.

"The mission was one for which I . . . did not expect to be accepted. I suppose the Crows' masters grew tired of my boasting—I was rather convinced I was the best Crow in Antiva. The mark for this mission was a merchant, very wealthy, with many guards. It was a difficult task, one that I could not manage on my own, I was certain.

"Taliesen agreed to be part of my team, as did an elven woman." He swallowed, and closed his eyes. A shrewd, emerald gaze stared back at him in the darkness that brought, through months of leaden guilt that he had ignored diligently, until now. He bit back a gasp of surprise and forced his lids open.

"Her name . . . her name was Rinna." Now, the words flowed easily, as Rinna's face shimmered in his memory, with those eyes he had never been able to easily decode watching him. "She was one of the strongest women I knew, and a brilliant Crow. She was beautiful, graceful and smooth, and wicked with a pair of daggers—everything I thought I could hope for in a partner." He paused, struggling to find the words that followed.

"You loved her, didn't you?" Arais's voice was almost too quiet for him to hear, and it was hoarse, as if from disuse, or maybe even from crying. Though she showed no recent evidence of the latter, it wasn't unlikely. Though, come to think of it, he had never once seen their leader cry. Likely, that was reserved for her mentor and her lover, and no one else.

He looked down at her; she had shifted only slightly so she could look up at him properly.

With only a brief hesitation, he nodded. "I believe I might have, though I hardly have a right to claim that." He cringed. "No, I definitely have no right to claim I ever loved her."

"Why not?"

"I . . ." he trailed off, unsure how to continue. It was much easier talking about it when he felt as if it were just talking to himself. He hadn't expected Arais to start _listening_. Though maybe he had hoped.

Arais sat up, carefully, and her facial expression began to shift, and slowly—so painfully slowly—returned to something akin to normal. She frowned almost imperceptibly, a glimmer of concern in her silver grey eyes. "Zevran, you can talk to me. I promise not to judge. I—" She cut herself off abruptly, and her expression blanked entirely.

Afraid she was shutting down again, Zevran hastily continued, "In retrospect, I should have been more careful in who I trusted on the mission. But Taliesen had always been a friend, someone who I could count on to have my back, so when he told me that Rinna had accepted a bribe from our mark and told Taliesen of her plan, I didn't hesitate to believe him. I agreed that she needed to be killed.

"She . . . she begged me to believe that she had not betrayed us, that she loved me and could never do such a thing. I laughed in her face, told her that even if it were true, if she really loved me, I didn't care. I was convinced that was truly the case." He swallowed a lump in his throat, and his eyes burned. "Taliesen cut her throat, and I watched her bleed to death. I even . . . I even spit on her corpse: a final insult for betraying the crows.

"It was a foolish mistake. We acted hastily, and it was my arrogance that allowed it to go so far. If we had only . . . " His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. "I should have waited until the mark was taken care of. If I had locked Rinna somewhere she couldn't be found until the job was done, then I would have found out she had nothing to do with the merchant at all."

A cool hand wrapped around his own; strong, supportive, and instinct screamed at him to pull away, but he resisted. "What happened next?" Arais asked, her voice even.

"I wanted to tell the truth. To confess my mistake to the Crow masters, and absolve Rinna of any blemish on her record, even after her death. But . . . " And here, he hung his head. "I allowed Taliesen to change my mind. I allowed Taliesen to do a lot of things during that mission. The best I could do was tell the masters that Rinna had died in the attempt, and keep it from counting against either Taliesen or myself."

"Did they believe you?"

He laughed, a disdainful bark of a laugh that grated his throat. "Of course not. They knew what we had done, and they didn't care. One master who had a particular dislike for me told me so to my face, and that in time, the same would happen to me. Perhaps it was to make it abundantly clear how little my life mattered to the Crows; to make sure I knew that I was only a tool, and tools could be replaced.

"Do you remember, many months ago, when you asked me why I wanted to leave the Crows?" She nodded, her brows furrowed. "The truth is . . . I wished to die. I believed taking on a pair of Grey Wardens would be akin to suicide. Since there is no honor in taking one's own life, I figured why not let someone do the deed for me?" Her hand tightened around his, the warmth beginning to return to her skin. "But even after I failed and you could have easily killed me . . . you let me live. For reasons I still do not quite understand, I might add."

"I . . ." She spoke slowly, as though she needed to adjust to language again. "I needed to know why you were after us. And then, when you offered to abandon a guild so notoriously unforgiving of defection . . ." She paused. "Now, I suppose I have my answer." Her voice was little more than a whisper. "When you knew I wouldn't kill you, you thought that maybe the Crows would do it, instead, didn't you?"

"You could say that." He smirked, though he was sure it didn't reach his eyes. "And I was correct, was I not? Taliesen and his merry band of Crows came to kill me, and with no small amount of effort." The smile slid from his face. "However, they arrived quite a bit too late to find me willing to fall at their feet. I . . . that I could deserve mercy seemed impossible to me. It still often does. And yet, mercy is what you showed to me, regardless of how unworthy of it I may be."

"Don't be ridiculous, Zevran." Now her voice was hard, with an edge that demanded his attention. "You might believe you're a horrible man for what you did to Rinna. But I can attest to the dozens of good deeds you've done since you joined me, all of which prove you wrong. I won't diminish how terrible it must have been to lose her, especially at the hand of someone you thought you could trust, but you are not alone." Her voice caught, but she barreled onward. "You are not the first to betray the one you loved, and you certainly won't be the last. Believe me, I know."

"Arais . . . " He searched her face, desperate for her approval even as he knew he was not worthy of it. "Arais, what happened at the Landsmeet—"

"No." She shook her head violently. "No, I can't talk about this. Not now."

"Then when, Arais? When the Blight is over? You could die—at any time, you could die. Any of us could. But I do not believe this is what you truly want, and I will not let you go another day believing that." She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it swiftly when his other hand closed around her free one, squeezing gently. "What you chose at the Landsmeet may not have ended as you wanted, but that does not make it the wrong decision.

"Loghain is alive and fighting for a cause he once did not believe in. You convinced a room full of nobles that you were the one who could lead Ferelden against the Blight. You have the support, not only of the allies you have gathered, but of Anora and her royal armies. You made the right choice. " He squeezed her hands again. "Be honest with yourself. You could never have chosen anything else. You could never have chosen for someone to die, when it was possible to have everyone alive and well."

"And what of Alistair?" Her voice was thick.

"It applies to him as well, even though he is no longer here. He is a capable warrior, and he can easily defend himself."

"You can't know that, Zevran." Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

"I could find out," he countered, finding comfort in the thought himself. "Despite leaving the Crows, I still have contacts. That pirate woman we met at the Pearl—the one you played Wicked Grace with?—I could see if she's heard word of Alistair. And there are others I could get in touch with; you need only ask."

"I—" She shook her head. "You would do that?"

"If it would give you peace of mind, then of course."

She took in a deep breath, her chest rising and falling in a slow curve. "I . . . don't think now would be the best time. As much as I would love to know that he's safe somewhere other than Ferelden, I need to focus on the Blight." She sighed. "And I won't be able to do that wondering every day if you've heard any news. It would be easier just wondering, for now."

"You're quite certain?"

There was a beat of hesitation before she nodded.

"If you change your mind," he promised, "I'm only a tent away."

"Thank you, Zevran." She pulled him close and wrapped her arms around him in a friendly embrace, and he held her for a moment before she pulled away. "I'm so sorry for what happened with Rinna. I'm sure if she knew how much her death has plagued you, she would forgive you. It wasn't entirely your fault."

"I appreciate the sentiment, Arais, but there are some things that just can't be forgiven."

"Then perhaps you should at least accept that you, unlike many of your former brothers, feel more guilt for this one death than they have for all of theirs combined, and are therefore more deserving of forgiveness. Not just from Rinna, but from yourself, as well."

He blinked, unsure what to say. "I will . . . think on it." He took one of her hands again, and it was at once warm and inviting. He squeezed it gently. "Now, if you think you can, I think we should try to sleep. We have an early start tomorrow if we're going to make it to . . . er . . ."

"Bann Loren's?"

"Yes, that's the one! We need to head out early if we're going to get there before dark tomorrow."

"You're right."

"Of course, I am."

Arais smiled wryly at Zevran's response.

After a quick brush of his lips to the back of her hand, he laid it on her lap and turned away. "Dream well, Arais."

"Zevran, wait." She put a hand on his arm to still his movement.

He turned back to her, a blond eyebrow raised in question.

"Will you . . . stay in here? Just for tonight? I would . . . I would just rather not be alone. You could use the bedroll that Alistair left behind, if you like."

"If that is your wish, my dear Warden, then of course." The urge to tease her about what the others might think presented itself, but he decided against it—there was a time and place for everything, and now was definitely not the time for that.

She smiled, a small, tired smile that still managed to light her face—perhaps because a smile so genuine had become all too rare from her in recent weeks. "Thank you, Zevran. You've been so wonderful, tonight. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to repay you."

"Arais." He was almost overwhelmed by the memory of all he had told her, and how she had simply listened, and kept her promise to not judge him for it. "Believe me when I say you already have."

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_**A huge, huge thank you to Herebedragons66 for betaing this for me, and getting it out of my drafts folder (where it's been since NaNo) and posted. Seriously, without her, I'd be lost.**_

_**I hope you all enjoyed it!**_


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